‘Survivor’ 37 power rankings: Will next week’s merge bring about a Mason-Dixon/Rockstars/Brochacho super alliance?

Wednesday night the castaways of “Survivor: David vs. Goliath” competed as tribes for the final time this season. The struggling Jabeni tribe returned to tribal council with #Jacketgate still on their minds, and though Angelina Keeley was in the hot seat for her deceptive behavior, in the end Mike White managed to get Nick Wilson to go against his word to Lyrsa Torres-Velez instead of sending another original Goliath home.

As we look ahead to next week’s merge episode, the biggest question is how the “David vs. Goliath” theme plays out once they’re all together. Because of Mike’s decision to keep Angelina, the Goliaths hold a 7-6 advantage over the Davids, but we’ve already seen players from both sides jump ship. With that in mind, our second set of power rankings this season is divided into what we see as the three main blocks of players still standing. At the top is a group of men composed of both Davids and Goliaths, next is the remaining Davids playing relatively low-key games and at the bottom are the other Goliaths coming off too competitive too early.

There are a number of factors leading me to believe that we’re going to see a new super alliance form in the coming weeks. At the merge, original allies Christian and Nick (“Mason-Dixon”) will come back together, but this time they’ll each bring a new set of allies with them. Christian has formed the unofficial “Brochacho” alliance (it’s actually more like a bond, I’d say) with John and Dan during their time at Tiva and Nick formed “The Rockstars” with Mike over at Jabeni. I’m pretty confident that Christian, Nick, Mike and John will come together smoothly, but that leaves Dan as the odd man out.

Prior to the tribal swap Dan was working closely with both Kara and Alison, but the three of them were split evenly across the three new tribes so there’s no telling how their bond will play out. What keeps Dan in a better position is two-fold: he has two idols (the girls only know about the first one) and Alison has already started the wheels going in an anti-Dan campaign. Something tells me that she’ll come out on the short end of that play though, not him.

What’s really working in the favor of this group is that on one side you have Christian and Nick who can maintain a sense of loyalty to the unimposing Davids still in the game, forming a pretty formidable block of six voters. Then there’s Mike, John and Dan who even if they want to remain Goliath-strong know that both Mike himself and Alec already turned on the Goliaths so their desire to work with the other Goliaths may not be that strong. The only bit left to be learned is whether or not Christian and Nick have the ability to bring their two side alliances together in order to form, what should we call it… “Rockchacho-Dixon”?

Because there has already been much ado about some Goliaths (Mike and Alec) turning prematurely on their own tribe, the Davids are looking a bit stronger headed into the merge–basically the cracks are already there for the Goliaths and so the Davids will know exactly where to apply the pressure. Sitting very pretty in the middle are these four Davids that no one in the game has called out as a threat yet. Gabby I rank at the top of the group because she is closest to Christian, my overall top pick.

Davie is next because he has a hidden immunity idol, followed by Elizabeth who is getting a prime edit and rounded out by Carl who has little-to-no-edit whatsoever, despite being one of the few players with a hidden advantage (albeit a pretty weak one). Of all these players, Gabby is the one most likely to be a “goat,” the player that no one sees as a threat and drags to the end because they believe she has no chance of winning. Meanwhile I can see a point where the other three become big enough threats to be targeted and/or they just become the “next to go” because they are lowest on the totem pole.

If I’m reading the edit correctly at all, I’d say none of these four have even an ounce of a chance at winning the game. Angelina is by far in the weakest position because she’s playing way too hard. She got through the last elimination by the skin of her teeth and the only reason she was on the chopping block in the first place was because of her own unforced errors. Angelina is strategizing all over the place and the previews for the merge episode suggest she’s up to more of the same next week. If she stirs up too much about getting Christian out she’s going to force John, Dan and Mike to make a decision between Goliaths or a cross-tribe alliance and, well, we already know which way I think they’ll go.

Kara, Alec and Alison don’t have bad edits necessarily, but they’re all running out of allies and in turn viable paths to the win. The split from their original ally Dan left Kara and Alison struggling to find new allies. Kara had a tough time seeing eye to eye with Alec, who dumbly was the first Goliath to vote one of his own out, and Alison is prematurely plotting against Dan. Alec, like Angelina, deserves credit for his willingness to play the game hard, but unfortunately he’s going to be too-little-too-late when he tries to build the bridge to the Davids, not knowing that John, Dan and Mike already claimed those spots.